Brion opened his eyes to this astonishing rodomontade. Laughter quivered in him, though he dared not yield to it.
‘In what way Kingly?’ said he.
‘As one who leads, Sir,’ answered Clerivault, ‘while feigning but to follow.’
‘And do you lead my Uncle, while so feigning?’
‘Soft, in your ear, now! Gray’s Inn might tell a tale.’
‘Gray’s Inn?’
‘Ha! You know not. ’Twas there we had our dwelling—no chambers nobler or more noted; and he who occupied them a fitting brilliant to such setting. Ancient, barrister, bencher—he had stood to reach the highest honour, that of duplex reader, but that sour Fortune tripped him. He shone, Sir; and, if like the carbuncle, which, being exposed to the sun, and thereafter set in darkness, repays the light it borrows, still—he shone. I say no more.’
He need not. The implication was plain to demonstration.
‘Wert thou the sun, Clerivault,’ said Brion, with a little gasp, ‘that made this carbuncle so to shine?’
The paragon coughed.